This past weekend after I had picked up my race packet at Gear West Triathlon for the Lake Waconia tri, I popped next door at the Gear West run store. I needed to pick up a new soccer ball for the Boy®. I stopped by the shade case and started to browse. I don't know what it is about shades, it's like you never have enough pairs.

Gear West had always carried Rudy Project so I was surprised to see they had discontinued carrying that line and were now carrying Giro. None other than owner Jan Guenther herself talked me through the new collection. She decided to switch to Giro after trying a pair and was impressed with their durability and the lenses.

I settled on a pair of white shades from their Filter™ line. These are at the top of the Giro’s range, the new Filter™ sunglass is a ‘half-entrapped’ sport style featuring Giro’s revolutionary, patented Pop Top™ lens interchange technology. With Pop Top, you can change lenses in seconds without the usual stress, uncertainty and potential for damaging the lenses that is common to other interchangeable glasses. And they are easy to switch out.

The key to the Pop Top system is a clever locking cam mechanism that is seamlessly integrated into the frame, which releases the lens for easy removal and then secures the new lens in the frame when you’re done. The Filter features removable 8-base polycarbonate ZEISS™ lenses with True Sight™ technology for 100% filtering of harmful UV rays and incredibly clear, accurate vision. As Jan said, the lenses are 'so easy on the eyes'. They are great lenses.